The Best Free Shopify Apps: 6 Ways to Boost Your Sales by 87%

In the world of drop-shipping, there are so many options that are available to you. Arguably, one of the most popular platforms for selling your products on is Shopify. But where do you start? What is the best way to market your Shopify store? What are the best free Shopify apps? In fact, what even is a Shopify app?

Don’t worry, at Contrado, we’re here to try and help you navigate the minefield that is finding the best way to market your Shopify store, and what each type of app does. We’ve taken a look at some of the best free Shopify apps and created this handy toolkit for you.

How do you get started?

Before you can start choosing the best free Shopify apps to market your products, you need to get set up on Shopify. We’ve already put together a handy guide on how to set up a Shopify store as well as how to link that store to your Contrado account.

Okay, so now what? You’ve set your store up, everything is connected, and transactions can now be made. So what about this Shopify app store then?

What are Shopify Apps?

Shopify apps are plugins which you can add to your account, or store, to improve functionality, monitor, pull reports or perform any number of tasks to help your Shopify store and its performance.

These can be found within the Shopify App Store, and while we have done our best to cover a number of the different types of apps you may encounter, because every business different, not every app will be relevant and some will be better for you than others.

The 6 Best Free Shopify Apps: Your Complete Toolkit

We’ve taken a look at some of the most popular types of Shopify apps that you may come across and had a look at what they do. Check out the guide below for more information.

1. Shopify Reviews App

Reviews are important for any business. From Google and TrustPilot reviews to eBay and Amazon feedback, so many people rely on them. People will look to reviews for guidance on the quality of a product, and whether it performs to the standard that they are expecting, but also, especially with distance selling, to find out how smooth the service, delivery and what a customer’s overall experience with a company is.

Our Pick

Product Reviews by Shopify – This is a free reviews app created by Shopify. It features a customisable design so you can use it with any theme, and it is simple and easy to use.

2. Shopify SEO App

SEO is a word that is thrown around a lot. It stands for Search Engine Optimisation and literally means exactly that; to optimise your content so that search engines see it, like it, and push it out to your customers. There are different ways to improve the SEO of your listings, but there are also apps that can help you to improve the performance of your sales available in the Shopify app store.

Our pick

SEO Expert Pro – SEO Tools by Expert Village Media Technologies – This app has multiple SEO tools within it. You can scan your store to fund any issues, which you can fix within the app. It allows you to update image tags to drive traffic from Google Images (which it does in bulk too). It also has other great features such as a mobile compatibility tester, speed testing and more – all whilst remaining a free app.

3. Best Blog Apps For Shopify

There are so many reasons why creating a blog is good for your Shopify store. Literally, so many. Blogging allows you to create scenarios and links between your products and real-world scenarios. Creating a blog allows you to be more than just a place your customers exchange money for things. It lets you connect with people, on a deeper level, which will increase their trust and potentially encourage spending.

If you’re selling – for example – herbs and spices, you could link to a recipe for a great way to use those flavours. If you’re selling wallpaper, you can link to a blog post containing a tutorial on how to hang it. The possibilities are endless.

Our Picks

Shopify has its own integrated blog tool – It’s quick to set up, covers all of the basics (such as images, video, SEO tools, a scheduler, comments and other super-helpful features) and best of all, it’s totally free.
Related Blog Posts by Digital Darts – This free app will encourage your readers to stay with you, by suggesting other posts (of yours) which are related to the one your customer has just read. This also helps your SEO performance as it creates internal links and helps Google to crawl your older posts.

4. Shopify Referral Apps

A referral app will allow your customers to recommend you to their friends, family or followers. One of the most common ways to do this is using social media channels. You’ll need to create an easy way for your customers to do this, and potentially an incentive as well.

Our Pick

Social Share Buttons and Popup by AAAeCommerce Inc – This app is completely free and has three separate ways in which it can help you to encourage your customers to refer their friends to you. It can incentivise, offering a discount via a popup if the customer shares the product on their socials. This app also allows you to add share icons on your product pages as well as sticky icons (icons that remain on-screen) to your store’s sidebar. On top of all of that, there is reporting to track how well it’s working.

5. Best Free Shopify Apps for Drop-shipping

Drop-shipping is an on-demand fulfilment method. It’s a form of retail where the store or seller doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. It cuts out a lot of the middleman work, as the merchant doesn’t need to bulk order their stock and hold it on-site, rather the order is placed with the wholesaler or manufacturer once the customer places an order with the seller. It’s much more environmentally friendly, as it negates the extra shipping, and it stops over-ordering too.

Our Pick

Print-on-Demand by Contrado – A free app which allows you to add custom made, print-on-demand products to your Shopify store. With worldwide shipping, international support and fast fulfilment. You can design the products yourself and they will be handmade to order and shipped directly to your customers.

6. Shopify Instagram Plugin

Connecting your Instagram feed to your Shopify store can be done in two ways. The first is by displaying Instagram images in your Shopify store – ideal for those all-important lifestyle shots. The second way would allow your Instagram followers to link to your Shopify, by tagging images. Needless to say, having both set-ups and creating almost a ‘two-way handshake’ is going to be the best solution for the highest impact. As the latter is an Instagram feature (although Shopify has its own app which will help you to set this up) we have looked at apps for the first option.

Our Pick

Instagram Feed and Slider Pro by Raptor – This is a completely free app that will add your Instagram photos to your Shopify store. You can do so with a grid layout or using a slider with more of a rotating carousel styling. It’s also customisable so you can make sure it works with your theme.